books.google.co.uk - This is a perfect bedside book for the literate gardener and makes a terrific gardener's gift book. It is an entertaining survey of 80 plant genera, with a multitude of references to, and extracts from, myth and literature from Shakespeare to the Victorian language of flowers. Based on prodigious research,...https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Contemplation_Upon_Flowers.html?id=n3MgSchHBjYC&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareA Contemplation Upon Flowers

A Contemplation Upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature

This is a perfect bedside book for the literate gardener and makes a terrific gardener's gift book. It is an entertaining survey of 80 plant genera, with a multitude of references to, and extracts from, myth and literature from Shakespeare to the Victorian language of flowers. Based on prodigious research, it includes much literature that has fallen into undeserved obscurity, as well as selections from the great poets. It is a delightful study of the influence of the world's flora on humanity, from the mundane to the mystical.

LibraryThing Review

User Review - keylawk - LibraryThing

The author, not content with being in the company of plants, indulges literature as well. He has tracked down literary and scientific references to flowers, with full botanical credentials.Read full review

A contemplation upon flowers: garden plants in myth and literature

User Review - Not Available - Book Verdict

Ward, a retired environmental scientist and gardener, has gathered quotations from poems, myths, novels, and plays from ancient Greece to the 19th century to illustrate the literary history of 80 ...Read full review

About the author (1999)

Bobby J. Ward is past president of the North American Rock Garden Society. He has a degree in plant physiology, received his PhD in botany from North Carolina State University, and is a retired environmental scientist. A dedicated gardener, he has long been interested in plant names and plant lore. His book A Contemplation Upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature won the Quill & Trowel Award of the Garden Writers Association.